A NORTH Yorkshire MP has thrown his weight behind calls for a fresh investigation into the contentious plans for a waste incinerator plant near Knaresborough.

Andrew Jones, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, has supported a call made by North Yorkshire councillors on the Harrogate Area Committee for a working party to be re-established to scrutinise the plans. Mr Jones said important assumptions made when the Allerton Park Waste Recycling Plant was first approved have changed.

He added: “PFI funding has gone, the landfill tax has not increased at anything like the rate predicted and the project is still not ready to begin. It is clear that the financial backdrop to this project is now completely changed on what it was several years ago.

“Given this, it seems sense that a working party should be set up to examine this new situation – this is no different to what happened previously and would provide North Yorkshire County Council’s Cabinet with valuable input from councillors who are not quite so close to this matter as the Cabinet are.”

The MP also said with more people recycling more of their waste, the capacity for the planned incinerator could be too big.

“The incinerator needs a minimum tonnage of waste to operate. If that tonnage isn’t there then what is the point of pressing ahead with the project? This, too, is something that the working party should examine.”

The Allerton Park plan was first approved in proposed by by North Yorkshire County Council in 2010, and the site gained planning permission in 2012, but has been dogged by delays and legal wrangles since.